Beside the Seaside, Beside the Sea
by charleygirl
Summary: Holmes and Watson, finishing up a case at the seaside, gain some unexpected company...


**Author's Note:**_ This was going to be a _Jotting_, but it got rather out of hand! Pure fluff, features the Cunningham family from_ The Inheritance of Barnabus Aloyisus Peabody_._

**Disclaimer:**_ Holmes and Watson do not belong to me. Cressida Cunningham and her children, however, do._

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**BESIDE THE SEASIDE…BESIDE THE SEA**

I straightened, my hands going instinctively to the small of my back to massage the ache there, my spine cracking rather disconcertingly as I came upright. For more than four hours I had been bent double staring intently at the ground, and the sun had intensified in that time, causing my shirt to stick uncomfortably to my skin, trickles of perspiration running down my forehead and beneath my clothes. I ran a finger around my collar, the starched points of which had long-since wilted, and felt in my pocket for a handkerchief. Though my time in India had made me used to dry heat, such humidity as this was another matter entirely.

"Holmes, this is futile," I said when I realised that he was still intently scanning the beach, apparently unaffected by the temperature. "How on earth can you expect to find one stone among thousands? Layton could not have picked a better hiding place!"

"This stone is distinctive, Watson – when we come upon it, it will announce its presence with a fanfare." He glanced at me from beneath his panama. "We have come too far to give up now! A couple more hours - "

" – will be more than I can stand. Have mercy, man – it's the hottest part of the day!" I moved to the breakwater and sat down upon a relatively dry stretch of wood, mopping my brow. "I believe we have both deserved a drink and some luncheon – I know of a nearby hostelry which serves a very tolerable steak and kidney pie. What do you think?"

Ignoring me, Holmes continued his methodical progress along the shingle, hands clasped behind his back, moving rather like a graceful wading bird which occasionally bent to dip its beak into the water in search of food. His long fingers would snatch at something, lift it to examine its surface and toss it back again with a growl of disgust. He had been retained by the local police to find a carved stone of great value which had been stolen from the home of Lady Agnes Mottisfont – we chased the thief, John Layton, halfway along the seafront the previous evening before he was eventually cornered and taken into custody. Despite Holmes's interrogation, he refused to reveal what he had done with the stone. As he had been passing the beach when we caught him, Holmes made the deduction that Layton had simply thrown his booty down to join its fellows on the sand, to remain there until he could go and fetch it. However, Layton had reckoned without one thing: the tide. Even now there was every chance that the stone had already been washed out to sea, hence Holmes's dragging me from my bed at the crack of dawn and forcing me to join him in his meticulous search of the shingle.

"Holmes," I said now, in a softer tone, "There is very little hope of our finding the stone."

"I refuse to be bested by that upstart Inspector Tweedale," he snapped, crouching to dig out a large pebble from a pile on the edge of the shoreline. Upon scrutinising it through his glass, he threw it with savage force into the sea. "He has already told Lady Mottisfont that the stone is lost!"

"He would appear to be right."

His spine stiffened, and then to my surprise relaxed as his shoulders slumped. Tucking the lens away in his pocket he came and sat beside me on the breakwater. "You think I am wasting my time?" he asked, removing his hat and fanning himself gently with it.

"I think that you are allowing your pride to come between yourself and the facts," I said honestly.

He sighed. "Yes, you may be right. However - "

Before he could articulate that thought, a shout from above cut across him, startling us both. A young voice cried, "It _is_ them! I _knew_ it was!"

Holmes looked up, annoyed at being interrupted, and I followed his lead, to see two small heads rising above the wall which separated the promenade from the beach. One was very dark, one incredibly fair, but both wore wide-brimmed straw hats and identical delighted smiles, marking them out easily as brother and sister despite the complete contrast in their colouring. They waved down to us, the taller of the two climbing up onto the wall itself in order to see us better.

"Cousin Sherlock!" he called. "I knew it was you! No one else would be poking about in the pebbles with a magnifying glass!"

"Master Cunningham," said Holmes, shielding his eyes with one hand in order to make out the lad, who was silhouetted against the sun, "What a remarkable chance that you should be here. Have you already slipped your mother's shackles?"

"No he has not," said a familiar voice before Ptolemy (for so it was) could answer. I stood as the upright figure of Cressida Cunningham, the children's mother and Holmes's cousin, appeared at the wall. "I remember your own attempts at escape, Sherlock, but I do feel that nine years old is a little young to be gadding about the country alone."

Hurriedly I did my best to appear presentable and made my way up the beach to meet the new arrivals, Holmes following at a more leisurely pace. When I reached them Ptolemy excitedly bounced forward and shook my hand, his sister Xanthe offering me her usual shy smile.

"I said to Mama that it was you I saw, Doctor Watson, but she wouldn't believe me," Ptolemy said, casting an affronted glance at his mother. "She said that cousin Sherlock never goes on holiday – he would only be dragged out of London if someone had been horribly murdered."

"She is quite right," Holmes responded before I could speak. He nodded to his cousin in greeting. "Either a murder or a theft of some considerable magnitude; perhaps a little recherché mystery. But you travel even less than I, Cressida, despite being married to a soldier. What brings you to the seaside?"

"Charles has some business in Winchester, so I decided to bring the children down on the train for the day," Cressida replied, looking just as cool and collected as Holmes himself beneath her large hat and parasol. I felt horribly dishevelled in comparison. "I am glad Ptolemy saw the two of you, however."

Holmes raised an eyebrow. "Really? Do you intend inviting us to join you for tea? I am sure that Watson must be ravenous by now."

"No exactly, no. In actual fact I have been invited to take tea myself, with an old friend I happened to run into near the assembly rooms." Cressida smiled, a rare event – I got the impression that we were going to be coerced into something, for she was a woman with an exceptional talent for getting her own way with others.

Naturally this fact did not escape Holmes, and he immediately looked suspicious. "What do you want, cousin?" he demanded.

"Well…"

"Mama wants to have tea with her friend, so she said that you would look after us," said Ptolemy, saving his mother the bother. He looked up at Holmes eagerly. "I think it's a capital idea!"

"I can assure you that I do not!" Holmes replied, staring at his cousin with a mixture of amazement and rage. "I am a detective, in the middle of a case, not a…a babysitter! I am _busy_!"

"Don't cause a scene, please, Sherlock," Cressida sighed. "You can be so tiresomely childish at times. I will only be gone an hour or two – I am sure you can break off your investigations for a short while."

"I most certainly cannot!" He rounded on me, gesticulating wildly in her direction. "Tell her, Watson! Tell her I am close to a breakthrough!"

"I really don't think that a small break would hurt," I said, earning myself a poisonous glare. "After all, you were only saying so yourself a few minutes ago that I looked as though I needed some respite."

The glare became a look of astonishment at this unusually barefaced lie upon my part. I would not normally stoop so low, but I was getting far too old for this sort of thing, and the stone we sought would have long-since been washed out to sea. Even Holmes himself had just said as much, though the continual skirmishing which characterised his relationship with Cressida would naturally not allow him to admit it to her. "Watson!" he exclaimed. "How can you - "

"Excellent," Cressida said, taking this as our assent to her plans. "I will meet you at the railway station at three o'clock – the Winchester train departs at exactly thirteen minutes past. Have fun – and make sure that they behave themselves!" With that she was gone, gliding off along the promenade. Holmes looked as though he might run after her, but thankfully the way was swiftly barred by two nursemaids with large perambulators and he was forced to concede defeat.

"That woman - !" he muttered, returning to where I stood with the children and reaching into his jacket pocket for his cigarette case. "I swear that she was put on this earth purely to plague me. I remember when - "

I cleared my throat, inclining my head towards Ptolemy and Xanthe, who were looking at us expectantly. Upon noticing them, Holmes sighed and reluctantly put the silver case away again.

"Oh, very well, I suppose we must make the best of it," he said, and then turned to me in uncharacteristic confusion. "Watson, what the devil does one _do_ with children?"

I had to laugh at that. It was not often that the great Sherlock Holmes was stymied in such a fashion. "Don't tell me that you have no idea at all!" I said. "I assume you were once a child yourself?"

"Of course," came the exasperated reply. "One does not spring into the world fully formed. But times have changed somewhat since you and I were children."

"We could help with your investigation," Ptolemy piped up. "We're good at looking for things. Just tell us what's been lost. Is it money? Or a diamond necklace?"

For a moment it looked as though Holmes might take the lad up on his offer, but after some consideration he shook his head. "No, your mother would never let me hear the end of it if I involved you in the case. Perhaps we should take a walk instead – I have heard that the Rock Gardens are rather fine," he finished lamely, glancing at me. Ptolemy pulled a face.

"Couldn't we do something more exciting?" he pleaded. "I don't want to do the same things with you as I would do with Mama, cousin Sherlock."

"The pier, then?" I suggested. "I believe there are some fairground rides nearby. Maybe some luncheon, and then - "

"This is pretty," said Xanthe suddenly, before I could finish outlining my plan. I turned to see that she had made her way around the sea wall and was picking up the pebbles on the beach. Her small face was screwed up with concentration as she peered at the large, round stone she held in her hand. When she realised that we were all watching her she held it out. "Look – it's all patterned. We don't have stones like this at home."

Holmes and I exchanged a glance. Could it really be that Xanthe had come across in a few moments the stone which had eluded us all morning? Without even waiting to voice an opinion, Holmes vaulted over the wall and strode across the shingle to the little girl's side. Ptolemy and I moved closer, the lad frowning in confusion as the detective crouched down, taking the stone Xanthe offered him. He felt it carefully, holding it up to the light, and dug in his jacket pocket for his lens. It was quite amusing to see Xanthe looking intently at the pebble over Holmes's shoulder as he scrutinised her find – she backed away quickly, however, when he let out a great shout of excitement, surging to his feet.

"This is it, Watson – this is it! To think that it has been here all the time and we did not notice it… Inspector Tweedale will be chagrined when he finds out we have it!"

"Well," I said, taking the stone from him and turning it over to reveal the carvings on the reverse, "it was rather like looking for a needle in a haystack."

"Is that what you were looking for?" Ptolemy asked, evidently disappointed. "Some boring old stone?"

"A very valuable old stone," Holmes corrected. "A man nearly killed one and injured two others in order to obtain it."

"Not every investigation is an adventure," I told the lad, patting his shoulder. "Sometimes they just pay the rent."

Ptolemy shrugged. "The pier and the fair sound much more interesting."

"I don't want to go to the pier," Xanthe announced, skipping up to us. "I want to go paddling."

"I'm too old to go paddling," declared her brother. She stuck out her little pink tongue at him.

I looked from one to the other. "Perhaps we can do both," I said, not wanting a repetition of the war which was continually being waged between their mother and her cousin. "We will wait for you if you wish to paddle now, Xanthe."

She pouted. "Mama says I'm not allowed to go into the water on my own – someone has to come with me." Glancing at Holmes, who was still examining Lady Mottisfont's stone, she brightened slightly. She tugged at his sleeve. "Cousin Sherlock?"

The detective raised his head, not having been listening to this part of the conversation. "Hmm?"

"Will you take me paddling?" Xanthe asked hopefully. "Ptolemy's horrible – he won't come with me."

"Paddling?" Holmes repeated, as though he thought that he had not heard correctly. He turned horrified eyes to me. "Watson?"

I smiled. "Well, Holmes, you _do_ owe her something for finding the stone…"

"_Please_?" Xanthe wheedled, all but fluttering her eyelashes at him. For one so apparently shy she knew exactly what to do in order to get what she wanted. "Oh, please, cousin Sherlock…"

Holmes attempted to stand firm, but even he caved under this onslaught. Despite the impression I may have given my readers he does not have a heart of stone, and only one truly without feeling could have remained immune to the soulful eyes and trembling lip that Xanthe presented to him. Sliding the stone into his pocket he sighed.

"Oh, very well. But just this once."

She clapped her hands together gleefully, sitting down upon the shingle and carefully removing her shoes and stockings. With the air of one acting only under extreme duress, Holmes did the same, deftly rolling up his trousers. He looked round and caught Ptolemy and myself grinning, and shot us both a glare.

"If anyone comes by and sees this, I am continuing my search for the missing stone," he said in a tone that brooked no argument. "Is that understood?"

Ptolemy and I looked at each other. "Yes, cousin Sherlock," we chorused, and then ducked as his shoes came flying at our heads.

FIN


End file.
